We Are a Woven Thread
by Fuuga Kumi
Summary: It's been three years since the fall of Hollow Bastion. Everyone is starting to settle into life as presented by Traverse Town. Squall tries to come to terms with the fact that this place may be more permanent than they anticipated, Yuffie still hates him, and Cloud is a husk of a human until he's not (and nobody can decide if this is better or worse than the Cloud that practically


p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Watch the shadow lines fade awaybr /Brother you will returnbr /Let your lion heart cleave the wavesbr /Brother you will returnbr /In the breaking lightbr /-Vienna Teng, Breaking Light/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;" /p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Traverse Town isn't so bad, not compared to the alternative which was void and blackness and having your heart torn from your chest while the last sound your living self ever heard was the terrified screams of loved ones. So no, Traverse Town is a freaking paradise in comparison./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Squall hadn't always felt that way, still didn't entirely, but he was trying to convince himself day by day. Rather, Aerith and Tifa were trying to convince them all of that, slipping outside the city to come back with impossible flowers that nobody could explain how they grew in the perpetual darkness, scattering them across the dinky house they had been given in every available container. Goodbye tea cups and glasses and pots and pans, all comforts were sacrificed for the occasional onslaught of nature and gentle reminders that look, look things grow and thrive and live, and we can do that, span style="font-style: oblique;"we can./span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Cid would grump and complain and swear as he scooped petals out of the tea kettle, but he'd deposit them into the next available bowl or glass or old boot that happened to be nearby and sloshing gently./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Three years. It had been three years since the fall of Hollow Bastion (and sometimes, late at night or early in what should be morning, another name would skip across Squall's tongue, a name that meant home but it came in a whisper in a dream and it left him as soon as it came.) Everyone was adjusting, loosening their white knuckle grip of calling this place temporary, calling it a rest stop, calling back to the shadows and the past and crying for four letters they were denied span style="font-style: oblique;"home./span The girls smiled more, giggling and braiding each others hair and talking of the little things to spruce the place up. Munny was being scrapped and horded from the odd jobs they had managed to snatch, promising themselves they would paint the kitchen, they would buy a new couch because the one gifted to the house had been fifth hand at least and was more tatters and spring than cushion at this point. They were span style="font-style: oblique;"settling/span and accepting./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Squall wanted to be mad at that, wanted to hold on to his fury and rage but he simply couldn't. They still wanted to go back, there was no secret about that. These were not their streets, not their people, and though the ingredients were similar this would never be their bread and food. He didn't blame them though, of washing away the pain and heat and wished he could join them; but he looked at Cloud every night before they fell asleep. Cloud the empty shell of who he once was, curled in whatever position he had been handled into last and would stay that way until someone moved him again. Cloud, with his eyes vacant and far away and jaw slack and it was any wonder that he was still breathing under his own power. Nobody knew what happened to him, nobody could explain what went on when the horde of darkness swarmed him back on the Bastion, but ever since then his friend so void of life. Traverse Town wasn't fixing him and part of Squall had to hope that, if they could get him back to the Bastion, back to the familiar air and sky then maybe…./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It wasn't just Cloud though, that made it so hard for him to fit this place in his lungs and heart and skin. It was also the girl./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Her name was Yuffie. Squall didn't like to think about her because her eyes burned into him with a bitterness one so young should never be capable of./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Back then, when the Bastion was still falling and chaos screamed around everything he had rescued her. Or rather, he had taken the small girl pressed through the bars of the locked gate. Her father had pleaded and begged and everyone else ran by, too concerned with their own well being to stop and care for someone else. She would fit through the bars but she wouldn't leave her father's arms, no matter how he pushed and yelled, no matter what insults he hurled at her (distantly, it had reminded Squall of when he was even younger and forced to give up a sweet pup that had followed him home.)/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Please," the man sobbed when Squall caught his eye. "Please, take my daughter."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She was so little then, she was still little, nobody knew how old she was, largely because she wouldn't talk (or at least not when Squall was around, he hadn't heard her voice since that last horrible day at the Bastion, as she screamed and sobbed until she choked and cried "Papa! Papa!" as Squall gathered her in his arms and ran.)/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Go," the man had said, drawing a sword and setting his shoulders. "Go span style="font-style: oblique;"kiyomo/span, I will come for you, if I can." and he had darted back into the building, the building where the darkness seethed and writhed from and the girl in Squall's arms lashed out, caught him in the mouth with her elbow as she scrabbled, bit at his arm and screamed./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"She stopped screaming when the building exploded, the heat licking at their flesh even three blocks away. She stopped screaming and he hadn't heard her make a sound for three years since./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"No, there are some things that don't bear thinking about./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Life in Traverse Town rolls on; they all have duties and jobs to do, to continue earning a meager living so they can go back to the charity house and eat the scant food they had scraped together and sleep in the gifted beds and pretend that this bare existence can be called living. Yuffie is too little to have to work, everyone decides, so she tags along as everyone takes turns baby-sitting her and Cloud. They decide they can't just leave him bound to his bed all day so they scrounge up a wheeled chair and Yuffie is given the special task of pushing him around, even though she can't quite see over the handlebars; and if she has to make a corner it's practically an ordeal, lots of scrapping of wheels that aren't meant to go at an angle, lots of grunting from the tiny slip of a girl who refuses help, I can do it./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Three years since they arrived at Traverse Town. Everything is practically as it was, they're all holding their breath waiting for the next storm./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Nobody is actually prepared when it hits though./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Squall wakes, disoriented and half blind in the dark, his heart thundering in his chest because of the noise, the guttural, animalistic scream coming from the bed occupied by Cloud. It's the first noises the other boy has made in years and later, when Cid asks for details Squall will shake his head and describe it only as a person utterly breaking. Squall tries to pin Cloud down, tries to soothe him with calm words like you would a startled chocobo but Cloud is still screaming, keening really, and thrashing so hard. Panic gripped Squall and he raises his voice, shouting, begging, trying to bring Cloud back to himself, back to something, to anything./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"The light flicks on and Cid joins the fray, holding down Cloud's legs before a knee could catch Squall in the side. It almost wasn't enough, the two of them laying on this boy who shouldn't have this strength, shouldn't be capable of this fight. He should be weak, muscles lost to years of inertia, instead he bucked and nearly sent all of them tumbling to the floor./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""What's going on?" asks Aerith from the door,and the sound of her voice stills Cloud in a way no one else has managed to. He sits up, looking at her with wild eyes./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""No," he moans. "No," and then he is on his feet and something large and leathery snaps from his shoulder like a third arm, like a wing and he backs up,shaking his head. "No," he says again, right before he dives through the window./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"They chase after him, Squall hauling himself through the opening Cloud had just made, heedless of the broken glass imbedding in his foot but it's too late. There is a sound he could only describe as Wrong, the air shattering and Squall can taste ozone and nothing in his mouth and with a crack, everything goes still and he knows Cloud has gone beyond their reach./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Two days later Tifa is gone and nobody is really surprised. She left less dramatically; in the dead of night while all the others slept and she was at least kind enough to leave a note. span style="font-style: oblique;"Don't worry, we'll be back soon!/span/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Aerith goes still after that, locks herself in the bedroom that had been set aside for the girls and they hear nothing from her./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Yuffie is locked on the outside of the room, staring around at nothing in particular. Cid has gone outside to yell obscenities at the sky and throw stones until his arm aches and he's burnt through a couple of layers of frustration. Yuffie looks up at Squall, and this time there is no fire in her eyes for him, this time there is only a dark lake that scares him more than her hatred./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Everyone is leaving," her voice is raspy from disuse, the words coming slow and stilted./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"Squall doesn't kneel beside her, he's not the comforting sort and besides, he realizes almost too late, she's getting too tall for anyone to have to kneel to be on eye level with her. She's growing up, they all are but she was so young when this all started that it seems somehow more to realize it for her./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Not everyone," he says. The words hang in the air and she looks back at the door where Aerith is silent in her grief./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""C'mon," says Squall. "It's late, you need some sleep."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""The door's locked," she reminds him./p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;""Borrow Cloud's bed," and he bites his lip before he could add span style="font-style: oblique;"he's not using it anyway./span But she looks unhappy with this prospect, a crease forming between her brows, so he amends, "It's just for one night, he won't mind."/p  
p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15.12px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5; color: #2a2a2a;"It's not just for one night, but they won't know that yet. Nobody could have foreseen the nightmares that take Aerith, that make her quake and sob and leave Yuffie helpless beside her because there's nothing to make it better. If she wakes the girl then she leaves Aerith to sink into her depression, sink into the mattress and stare unseeingly at the ceiling as tears leak out the corner of her eyes and if she lets her sleep then she becomes tormented by the cries she hears. So she takes up almost permanent residence in what had once been "the boys rooms". but that's later, for now, for tonight she lets herself believe Tifa and Cloud will be back soon and everything will be better, and she says as much to Squall who wants to agree, wants to be capable of this hope too, so he nods and tucks her in and they bid each other a tense good night, the air still fraught with things unsaid by children who can't grasp the sorrows filling them./p 


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